


Unspoken Wish

by Qzeebrella



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-26
Updated: 2008-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-16 05:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8088790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qzeebrella/pseuds/Qzeebrella
Summary: Jon has always associated stargazing with love.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: dedicated to kayjay  


* * *

When I was a child, my father and I would go out stargazing together. The sparkling lights seeming to smile down upon us as he pointed to each star, in each constellation and told me about them. Telling me stories about Orion, the hunter and warrior, about Ursus Major the bear, and all the others, fuelling my imagination. I dreamt of exploring the stars, yearned to visit each one and see what they were really like in person and I wanted to do it with my father by my side, just like he was on those many nights of stargazing. For every night we went, I was surrounded by love and by starlight and to me they went together and one would not be complete without the other.

Years passed and yet my father and I still went out and stargazed together. Me now an adolescent and him with his hair mostly grey. With me telling him of what I had learned about the stars. With him telling me of the Vulcans, their planet and their sun. With us sharing our days, our hopes, our dreams and our love for each other, though that love remained unspoken. We were united by our love for the stars, our longing to reach out to them and learn more about them, our desire to go out and explore the worlds around each star, and it was wonderful.

As a young man I studied hard, with my fatherâ€™s encouragement, and began working toward the goal of joining Starfleet. During this time, my father fought with the Vulcans, time and time again, in an attempt to get their aid in reaching out to the stars. I would see my father on holiday and every now and then and each time we would go stargazing. To talk and reconnect, surrounded by starlight and unspoken love.

After university, I joined Starfleet and flew as a pilot for the first time, through our solar system and just beyond it. Looking back upon the sun under which I was born, now just another star, more beautiful to my eyes than most, for it was the star under which my father bestowed his love upon me. Each and every flight after that was filled with wonderment, with awe, and with a feeling of overwhelming joy. For I took my love for the stars, the love for my father with me, and allowed it to swell up inside me, there in the starlight.

Starfleet made strides toward the goal of exploring the stars during this time, in spite of all the obstacles the Vulcans put in our way. I had hope that my father and I would get to explore beyond our solar system together in the ship he designed. Hope that we would get to stargaze together from the deck of that ship, from an observation port or from the bridge, but it wasnâ€™t meant to be. I was flying out by Saturn when I got word to return to Earth as soon as possible. I landed the experimental craft I was piloting and was met by my fatherâ€™s best friend Max and told the news. My father had died of a massive, unexpected heart attack and I was now an orphan. Alone under the starlight shining above us. Even though Max was still there. 

I was devastated, and for a time, I was lost. I drifted through life without direction. I ached with emptiness for my father was no longer there. And I despaired for I had never told him that I loved him. Never said it out loud. Though I had felt it every time I had been surrounded by starlight.

Time passed and slowly I healed. Slowly I allowed myself to see the stars again, to be comforted by their beauty, to be surrounded by the love I felt anytime I was in their presence due to the association they had with my father. I forgave myself for never having said I love you to my father and I moved on. I reached back, out to the stars, carrying my fatherâ€™s memory with me. Carrying the love I had for him, and he for me, a love made sweeter among the stars. For the stars and my father were intertwined in my heart and in my memories and could never be separated.

I kept up the fight with the Vulcans for the opportunity to explore the stars. I kept pushing for my fatherâ€™s ship to be built and one day it was. I fought to be on it, preferably as Captain, though I secretly would have accepted being chief cook and bottle washer, if that was the only way I would be able to have a place on the ship. I became Captain and chose my crew and we set out, into the universe. United by a common purpose. I thought I would grieve the absence of my father. I thought I would despair that he never got the chance to travel upon the ship he designed. I was wrong. For my father was with me, in my heart and every time I saw the starlight I would remember my father, feel his love, and be as surrounded by it as I was surrounded by the stars.

It was here, among the stars, I found something I never expected. Something I never thought to look for. A longing for a different kind of love. A longing that intensified every time I took the time to go stargazing within an observation room. It was almost as if being surrounded by starlight awakened the longing for love, just as it invoked the memory of my fatherâ€™s love. Yet it was hopeless, for who could I be with, here, under the stars, on the ship I commanded? For I could not reach out to anyone and it was unlikely that the one I longed for in my secret thoughts would ever reach out to me. For the one I desired was raised to obey the traditional regulations without question, without objection, and I thought he was incapable of seeing beyond them. I thought heâ€™d never be able to find it within himself to question what he had been raised to believe and uphold. I thought heâ€™d never find the courage to defy these intrinsic beliefs and reach out to me.

I was wrong. I underestimated him, to my shame and my joy. I underestimated Malcolmâ€™s courage. He found a way to look beyond what he was raised to believe and to ask what he truly wanted. Thankfully I proved to be what he wanted and was immensely pleased, no, awestruck when he found the courage to reach out to me. 

Ever since, this journey I am on has been richer. Ever since, life here among the stars has been sweeter for I have him and he has me. 

Now, we sit here in the observation room, bathed in starlight. Him in front of me, between my legs, leaning back against me as I hold him in my arms and tell him of all the times my father and I went stargazing. Of how I associate starlight with love and love with starlight and he snuggles deeper into my arms. He tells me of his love of the stars, of all the times he went stargazing, and of his relationship with his father. Of how love is there between them and my being glad for him, having feared that it wasnâ€™t. He tells me of how his father and he went hunting for insects and of how his father taught him all about them and of how he associates that with his love for his father that he has within him. It is there, within the embrace of starlight, that I get to know him better. It is there that my soul, my heart begins to intertwine with his. It is there that we begin to become one through our love for each other and for the stars. 

We are surrounded by starlight, embraced by it, as much part of it as we are of each other and I am incredibly grateful that I have found this, here among the stars. I hold him close and he leans into me. We sit together, united by starlight and love. The stars that have always been associated with love within my mind, an association that is stronger now that I have found love amongst them with this man in my arms.


End file.
